Genji in Exile at Suma, from the series Genji in Fashionable Modern Guise (Fūryū yatsushi Genji: Suma)

This 1791 design by Chobunsai Eishi forms part of his celebrated series Furyu yatsushi Genji, which transposed chapters of The Tale of Genji into the fashionable world of late-eighteenth-century Edo. The sheet refers to the Suma chapter, in which the disgraced Prince Genji retreats to a remote stretch of coastline. Eishi handles the subject in mitate fashion: contemporary beauties stand in for Genji and his companions, while details of dress and setting allude to the chapter's atmosphere of dignified seclusion. The composition exemplifies Eishi's Edo bijin-ga at its most refined. His figures, tall and willowy, are aligned in a measured rhythm reminiscent of the Kano-trained ukiyo-e draftsmanship he had absorbed from Kano Eisen'in before entering the print market. The palette favors soft greys, pale ochres, and quiet indigo washes, consistent with the restrained colorism that distinguished Eishi from the bolder pigmentation of Utamaro and Kiyonaga. A single floating sail or distant rock can stand in for the entire Suma coast, leaving the human figures to carry the narrative. The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves an impression of this print, catalogued under collection search 56089 and identified explicitly with the Suma chapter of the Furyu yatsushi Genji series. The sheet is an exemplary instance of Eishi's project of dignifying ukiyo-e by aligning it with the classical literature familiar to samurai and merchant elites, a project that earned him a reputation as the most aristocratic of the late Edo bijin-ga designers.